OK, so—you’re reading this report because you want to buy Instagram followers. That is totally valid and something I have done many times, both for myself and for clients. I have also bought Twitter followers, YouTube views/ likes, Facebook fans, and even MySpace friends. Basically you name it, I’ve tried it. I know what works, what you should avoid, and what is going to get you into trouble.

Who am I? I actually own a website development/ SEO agency. I have been doing this work for 5 years, and I provide these services mostly to high-end corporate and celebrity clients. That is why I am writing this report anonymously. I wanted to share some of the “tricks of the trade” that agency people use, but I obviously don’t want to get myself or any of my clients in hot water. So, under this cloak of anonymity, I am going to give you some of my best secrets.

That is why I’m happy to bring you this guide and others like it, so that you can avoid the pitfalls of buying social media numbers. As you might expect from a guide like this, I have to warn you: almost all of these techniques violate the terms of service of the companies, so be careful, and don’t be heartbroken if you get one of your accounts banned.

I really hope you’re going to read this whole article, but if you don’t, my recommendation is that you use FIVERR to buy your Instagram followers. I have a special method of searching that is really helpful, so be sure to read all the way down!

Here are some reasons why you might want to buy some followers, either on Instagram, on Twitter, or any other social media platform.

n You want to “tweak” your account, meaning getting some momentum on it so you start getting more followers organically. Obviously the best way to get more followers is to put out great content and interact with other Instagram users, but if you don’t have that kind of time, one way around that initial outlay of work is to buy some followers and get them engaged. This strategy has been used by major corporations, celebrities, designers, authors—basically you name it, I’ve helped them buy followers to make their accounts look bigger and more active.

n You just want your account to look bigger. Whether it’s for a big potential client meeting or to impress your friends, there is something to be said for having a large number of followers. Most people will not even suspect that you bought these followers, so they will figure that you are a force to be reckoned with (which of course you are) or that you really know what you’re doing when it comes to social media (which of course you do).

Whatever reason is fine. I just want to help you accomplish your goal of increased Instagram followers without getting into trouble or having some nefarious foreign internet person get ahold of your account information.

When you search the internet for “Buy Instagram Followers,” you probably turned up some results like this:

It’s awesome that people are ambitious and start companies like this. However, I would never NEVER buy followers from them.

Here’s why I never buy followers from any of these companies (or really, any company that was just an “independent” type of enterprise:

Selling/ buying Instagram followers is technically against Instagram’s terms of service. All of these companies are totally based around doing something “black hat,” which means they are already skirting the rules. I would never, NEVER give my credit card information to a company that is totally based around rule-breaking. Not a great idea. If you want to break the rules, do it in a controlled environment, I say.

No Recourse. If you give one of these companies your money and they don’t deliver on their promise of followers, what are you going to do about it? There is really no Better Business Bureau for black-hat internet / social media services. You are really on your own here.

No Guarantees. Frankly, there is no guarantee any of these providers are even going to be there tomorrow. When they go out of business, they might very well take all of your followers with them.

No Communication. If you’ll notice, most (if not all) of these services have descriptive text on their websites that is in very poor English. I have nothing against non-English speakers, but if English is not their first language, it is going to be VERY hard for you to communicate your needs to the provider, and to really guarantee that they are going to keep it discreet. Do you want them putting your name on their website as a “satisfied client?” This happened to me once, and I could not get the provider to take down the link. This ended up being a nightmare, both for me and the client whose account I was augmenting at the time.

Suspicious footprint. In my experience, companies like these use the same accounts to follow all of their new clients. Once Instagram identifies these networks, they are more likely to shut them down. When their accounts go down, your account can go with it.

Just FYI, I also would definitely NOT advise employing a long-term “social media management” service to do this for you. I think most social media managers are straight-up scammers who are probably not even as smart as you, so save yourself the time and money and just go out and buy some instagram followers yourself.

With all that said, the thing I really recommend to clients is that they use a marketplace called Fiverr to get Instagram followers. I have a couple of providers that I recommend, but you also can just do a general search. I will tell you about both of these shortly.

The reasons I recommend Fiverr for this kind of thing are the following:

— Minimal Risk. All the gigs on Fiverr cost $5. No negotiation, no BS, just $5. If you love the service, use it over and over again. If you hate it, you only lost $5.

— You control the money, and you have the upper hand. You buy “gigs” on Fiverr, and the vendor only gets paid when the gig is finished. The vendor never has your account information, so you don’t have to worry about foreign strangers having your credit card info.

— You are able to research the vendors based on feedback, so you really know what you’re getting into before you hit the “Buy” button. Fiverr is very community-based, so bad vendors get weeded out quickly.

You can actually get a ton of good services for your business on Fiverr (like logos and one-off design projects), and as you’ll see, there are also gigs ranging from animation to voiceover to psychic readings and everything in between. You might find that you love Fiverr (like I do!) and use it for many different things.

3. Pick a pen name for your Fiverr account that is separate from your own name, like “CatLady24.” Important: DO NOT use your Facebook or Google + account to start your Fiverr account. One important part of this process is that you putting some distance between your Instagram account and the actual act of buying followers, because if everyone in your social circles knew you were buying them, that would defeat the purpose of growing the number.

4. Once you’ve confirmed your account, go into the Fiverr marketplace and search for “Instagram” or “Instagram Followers.”

5. SUPER IMPORTANT: Click the “High Rating” button so that you are looking at the providers with the highest ratings. The default screen is “Recommended,” which vendors are able to pay for. Vendors can’t pay for good ratings, so clicking “High Ranking” will get you only the originally highest-rated vendors. As I mentioned, Fiverr is a very active community with tons of ratings, so you will be able to spot a bad vendor and avoid them.

Here are two things to look for in a vendor:

I like to only buy gigs from vendors with more than 100 ratings. This gives the vendor time to do some “trial and error” on the gig and get some feedback.

Make sure the total number of reviews for the gig has at least a 90% overall rating.

With the criteria that we want to buy Instagram followers, we want a vendor who has more than 100 reviews, plus we want the total reviews to be above 90%, this leaves us with two promising providers.

This person’s username is garg123, in case you want to search for them.

As you’ll notice, this gig follows both of my rules—it has been purchased by 160 buyers, and it has a 99% positive rating. It also has express delivery, which is nice.

Here is another gig I have also used.

This guy’s username is “instaexpert,” in case you want to search for him.

This one is better for sheer numbers (i.e. to make a brand-new account look more legit). This gig has been completed 551 times and has a 94% rating, which is still pretty good considering that kind of volume. I do know for a fact that these followers are “empties,” meaning this guy just owns a bunch of fake profiles and is going to use them to follow your account. This means there is a high likelihood that your numbers are going to drop back down. If you need to bulk up your following for a big meeting, though, this gig is great.

Set Your Expectations

Paid Followers Usually Have Limited Interaction

When you buy followers on any kind of social media, you are mostly just going for larger numbers (to reinforce credibility/ to get the ball rolling on your social media). With that in mind, you should lower your expectations of how much these new followers are going to actually interact. In fact, if you want your Instagram account to look “organic,” like it’s getting a ton of followers and likes, you might want to buy more than one Fiverr gig.

What we hope is that your content is so engaging and/ or your product is so awesome, it just takes a couple of these type of gigs to get people to notice you and for your Instagram account to start catching on for real, so you won’t need to keep buying followers.

Account Suspension

This is unlikely to happen (especially if you cover your tracks using trusted, highly-rated Fiverr providers), but every once in awhile, Instagram puts the pieces together and starts banning/ deleting the accounts of people who have paid followers. If this does happen to you, I would recommend AGAINST trying to get the account back. This is usually a waste of time. After all, this is a free service, and you did technically violate their terms, so you might not have a very good argument for them to reinstate your account. In cases like this, I recommend filing ONE request for reinstatement of the account in question, then using a different email to start a totally new account. Name it something roughly similar to what your account was named, re-populate it with the same photos, buy some more followers, and you’re good to go. Just make sure you change the links on places like your website over to the new account. Don’t let it get you down, but realize that it can be a risk.